Maryland Injury Law Center

May 7, 2007

$1 Million Brachial Plexus Settlement – Is This a Lot of Money?

Virginia Lawyers Weekly reports today on a $1,000,000 settlement in a medical malpractice Erb’s palsy case. The interesting thing about this case is that the injuries occurred during a cesarean section. The father of the child claimed he witnessed the obstetrician applying excessive force to the fetal head after the baby’s shoulder did not clear. Plaintiff’s expert testified the doctor failed to make the incision large enough to extract the baby’s head and then inappropriately applied traction to the baby’s still entrapped head. Fortunately, the doctor promptly diagnosed the child with a brachial plexus injury confined to the child’s neck (at C5/C6). After surgery, the child has a good prognosis for a functional arm and hand.

Shoulder dystocia cases are not rare but this is the first case I have seen or read about where the OB/GYN’s malpractice was failing to make a large enough C-section incision. There are many claims that involve failing to provide a c-section.

These injuries occur with babies that are much larger than typical or, as is frequently the case when the mother has diagnosed or undiagnosed gestational diabetes (or is just a diabetic). The big thing with this problem is seeing the problem before it manifests itself.

May 3, 2007

Protecting the Injury Victim During Deposition

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Goal number one when your client is giving a deposition is to do no harm.

The greatest harm your client can do in almost any personal injury case in his/her deposition is to get caught in a lie. Clients are most prone to “lie” about prior car accidents because they genuinely do not remember them. But a smart insurance company lawyer may turn an innocent failure to recall into a litmus test on the client’s credibility. As much as we as personal injury lawyers like to make the cases about ourselves – particularly when we get a great verdict, we all do it – the importance of our credibility/likability is a distant second to the importance to that of our client.

How can you solve the problem? Obviously, a good attorney spends time before the deposition discussing the issue with the client, explaining in very direct terms that prior medical history or claims history will be uncovered by any competent defense attorney or adjuster with access to a computer and/or the medical records. But, again, in some circumstances, the client may not remember whether they were injured on the job or made a claim for a car accident in which it involved them.

April 27, 2007

Medical Malpractice Study

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

A recent study found that juries are more likely to side with doctors in medical malpractice cases. The study showed that juries are skeptical of people and their lawyers who sue their doctors and that most medical malpractice trials result in a verdict for the medical doctors. (See yesterday’s Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog post for one more reason they may be skeptical.)

The author of the study, Philip Peters Jr., of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, concluded that juries treat doctors favorably, “perhaps unfairly so,” and are more likely than even fellow physicians to defer to a doctor’s opinion.

Peters found that most medical malpractice rulings are in favor of the health care provider and that the cases that go to trial are the weakest ones since those with sound evidence usually settle before trial. In an examination of win rates in New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida, and Michigan, Peters found that 27% to 30% of medical malpractice suits end in a plaintiff’s verdict, the lowest success rate of any tort litigation. In Maryland, the number is reportedly 8%.

April 26, 2007

Claim for $65 Million for Roy Pearson’s Lost Pants

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

[EDITOR’S UPDATE: There is a verdict: click here for blog on the good news of a VERDICT in Pearson v. Chang.]

Pearson v. Chang was the McDonald case of the last decade

If Roy Pearson did not exist, advocates of tort reform would invent him. Mr. Pearson is an administrative law judge who sued his neighborhood dry cleaner for misplacing his pants. Two years, over 1000 hours of Mr. Pearson’s time, thousands of pages of legal pleadings, and discovery later, Pearson continues his battle against the dry cleaner. His complaint seeks $65,462,500 from the dry cleaner, including compensation for such things as “mental suffering, inconvenience, and discomfort,” for the value of the time he has spent on the lawsuit, and, my favorite, for leasing a car every weekend for 10 years because there is no dry cleaner close to his house. If you didn’t get that the first time, this is over a single misplaced pair of pants.

April 20, 2007

Study Highlights General Motors’ Vehicle Death Rates

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Insurance Journal reported today on an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study that found that General Motors’ vehicles had both the highest and lowest death rates in the period between 2002 and 2005. Chevrolet Blazers built from 2001 to 2004 had 232 driver deaths per million registered vehicles during the four-year span, the highest of any vehicle. The Acura RSX had the second-highest rate with 202 driver deaths followed by the Nissan 350Z, which registered 193 deaths. The rate represents the reported number of driver deaths divided by the model’s number of registered years.

In contrast, the Chevrolet Astro minivan had the lowest rate with only seven deaths per million registered vehicles. It was followed by the Infiniti G35, BMW 7 Series and the Toyota 4Runner. Ironically, Chevy no longer makes the Blazer or the Astro.

My guess is that the Chevy Astro is not 33 times safer than a Chevy Blazer. The demographics in terms of risk-taking behaviors are different for the purchaser of a minivan than a sporty SUV because the study did not consider driver behavior or how the vehicles are used. Still, there are still meaningful conclusions that can be drawn from this study about which vehicles are the safest and least safe to drive. The profile on the driver of a Chevy Blazers cannot be that different from the drivers of Toyota 4-Runners.

April 16, 2007

Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Filed Against Carolina Panthers’ Team Doctor

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Former Carolina Panthers wide receiver Patrick Jeffers re-filed his medical malpractice and negligence lawsuit last week against the Carolina Panthers’ former team doctor. Jeffers had originally brought a medical malpractice claim in 2003, but his lawyers voluntarily dismissed the claim last year. The new medical malpractice lawsuit is virtually identical to the prior claim. Mr. Jeffers’ medical malpractice attorneys allege that Jeffers’ NFL career was “destroyed” because of the team doctor adding five unauthorized knee procedures to an Aug. 20, 2000 surgery.

The original suit included the Panthers, but a judge ruled that Jeffers’ complaints against the team first needed to go through the NFL’s grievance process because of provisions in the league’s collective bargaining agreement.

I brought a medical malpractice lawsuit against the New England Patriots, their team doctor, and a surgeon who operated on my client about six years ago. The Patriots raised this same defense but did not raise it until we had gone through two years of litigation. The judge ruled that the Patriots had waived their arbitration right by not raising the issue. The Patriots settled the case shortly after this ruling.

April 5, 2007

First Party Bad Faith Passes the Maryland Legislature

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Senate has passed House Bill 425 and the Maryland House of Delegates today also passed the bill, which puts a new requirement of good faith for insurance companies dealing with their insureds. The bill now heads to Governor O’Malley for his signature. The Governor has previously pledged support for the bill.

This issue has been a reoccurring topic on the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog. See this post and this post. My partner, Laura G. Zois, testified before the Maryland Senate and House of Delegates about three weeks ago on this very issue. I know that after the bill passed the Maryland Senate, there were a lot of lobbying efforts from the insurance companies to keep it from passing in the House of Delegates. They pushed the vote back, and I began to doubt whether Maryland would join most states that already have first-party bad faith. I’m thrilled the Maryland Assembly put the interest of Maryland injury victims and consumers ahead of the insurance company and their lobbyists.

This is a huge win for victims and their attorneys who are fighting to get injury victims a fair recovery for their injuries and the benefits of the insurance contract for which they are paying premiums.

March 30, 2007

Causes of Maryland Truck Accidents

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

According to The Federal Motor Carry Safety Administration’s 2006 report, there are approximately 141,000 truck crashes every year. In 77,000 of these truck accidents – more than half – the fault was attributed to the truck driver. This is interesting because we have been getting data from the American Trucking Associations. and the Truckload Carriers Association for years telling us that the truck drivers are rarely at fault in truck accidents. Yet this ostensibly objective study says just the opposite.

According to the FMCA 2006 report, the top 10 causes of truck accidents where the truck driver is a fault:

1. Prescription drug use (26%)

March 21, 2007

Slip and Fall Cases on Snow and Ice: Will You Win?

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I stumbled on a Metro Verdicts Monthly from last year that examined the success plaintiffs have at trial in slip and fall cases on snow and ice. In Maryland, defendants prevailed 62% of the time.

The difficulty in these cases often lies not with whether the defendant was negligent, but whether the plaintiff assumed the risk because he/she appreciated the danger of walking on the snow/ice. Under Maryland law, this is the assumption of the risk, unless the plaintiff lacked the free will to avoid the danger. This is presumably the case when going to work, entering or leaving your home, and tending to other necessities of life. That no reasonable alternative path was available does not reduce the free will standard.

Morgan State v. Walker

March 19, 2007

Maryland Drivers Who Get Speeding Tickets Continue to Speed According to University of Maryland Study

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Ever wonder why your insurance rates go up when you get a speeding ticket? A study of 3.7 million licensed Maryland drivers shows that ticketing does not reduce drivers’ likelihood of getting another ticket for speeding.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine looked at Maryland’s licensed drivers and found that getting a speeding ticket almost doubles the risk of receiving a subsequent speeding citation.

The study also turned up interesting data comparing those who go to court for speeding tickets and those that do not. As every Maryland driver knows, if you get a speeding ticket and you were not doing a complete Dale Earnhardt impression, you can either go to court (where you will invariably be found guilty so your best bet is to plead guilty) or you can pay the fine by mail. The University of Maryland study found that the likelihood of receiving another speeding ticket was 12 percent among drivers who had opted to pay fines and received points on their driving records compared to eight percent among those who received probation before judgment (PBJ). This makes sense. The driver who cared enough to go to court is probably more likely to slow down.